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We're offering NEW REWARDS! As well as discounted rewards, which are listed at the bottom of this page! You can NOW get a Tee Shirt for the $50 pledge, Concept Art Print for the $25 pledge, and Associate Producer credit for the $300 pledge!!! Check them out below and grab yours today! :)

A church burns to the ground with a congregation locked inside and every local news source is desperately scrounging through rumors to get the full story before they’re live in a few minutes. When it seems like there’s no cohesive account, one young producer gets the tip of his career: the supposed group of psychopaths that have been terrorizing the region are offering not only the story but their personal footage of the horrors inside of the church as it all unfolded. Without a way of contacting them again, it’s on the poorly funded news station to juggle their integrity and rebroadcast the psychopaths’ footage or turn it over to the authorities.

Left to right: The Driver, Daemon, Geneva, and Virgil

Amerikan Hell is designed to be a studio-quality horror / thriller short film made for a fraction of the budget. Our goal is to go straight into pre-production once we hit our budget goal and shoot this film by the end of summer / beginning of fall, when the trees are dead and the world seems cold and ominous.

Amerikan Hell will be shot digitally on either the RED Scarlet or ARRI Alexa using anamorphic lenses. Here is a video showcasing a Kowa Anamorphic Lens Test, for those who are unfamiliar with them. It will then be color corrected to fit that raw grainy feel we all know and love. The feeling as though this was shot on Super 16mm and blown up to 35mm print in resemblance to films like The Wrestler. The reason behind using anamorphic lenses is to be able to capture more characters within one frame... allowing them to play off each other within this story and to allow the audience to watch it all unfold before their eyes with longer takes.

The Wrestler (2008)

Wide anamorphic lenses and harsher colors such as reds, oranges, and browns will be utilized heavily for the antagonists. This will help display their violent nature.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Léon: The Professional (1994)

Then of course, longer anamorphic lenses and colder colors such as blues, purples, and greens will be used for the protagonists.

The Usual Suspects (1995)

Se7en (1995)

Our story cuts back and forth between both the antagonist's and the protagonist's world a lot and rather quickly. This extreme level of change amongst both sides will help showcase the character's true emotion and the world they believe they live in. View our full look book here!

We all know films are tough to make without a budget and I'm not going to sugar coat this, because this is the reason we are here. We need a budget in order to film a high-quality action packed horror film with blood, guns, scary masks, satanic psychopaths, and people getting murdered!! We need you to join our team!

The common question with every Kickstarter... How will my contribution be spent?

PRODUCTION - The majority of our budget will go directly toward what you see on the screen. Set Design, Set Construction, Picture Cars, Props, Costumes, Lights, Locations, Special Effects Makeup, BLOOD!!!!, and of course the camera required to capture it all!

POST-PRODUCTION - Editing is already covered by our talented Director, but the rest will need to be handled with care by our beautiful post team. This includes Sound Design, Sound Mixing, Foley, ADR, Title Design, Music, Color Correction, and VFX.

PERKS - We appreciate your support and don't want to leave you empty-handed. We've created some fun incentives for our backers that will only be available through this campaign. All perks are listed at the bottom of this page.

On top of all that, we have FEES...

Kickstarter is an incredible platform for creatives. Understandably, they require a small percentage in order to make projects like Amerikan Hell a reality. Additionally, Amazon requires 3% for processing payments.

The common question everyone asks.... What happens if you exceed your $25,000 goal?

Honestly, we hope that happens! If we exceed our goal, then we will be able to apply more time and effort into our props, costumes, set design, and overall look and style. Don't get me wrong though, I've budgeted this out perfectly where we can make an AMAZING film with our projected $25,000 budget. Although, more money equals more fake blood, more detail to prosthetics, bigger lights for epic moon light, more crew, more days so we aren't rushed, more festivals we can enter, etc... Every penny pledged will go straight into this film! Every penny will be spent on bringing this film to life and making the best darn horror film the world will ever see! :)

What happens if you don't make your goal?

Amerikan Hell has been in the works since the end of 2011. We're NOT giving up! It will happen no matter what... it just might take longer to come to life!

Whether conscious to their actions, what’s clear is that they act as the catalyst to a revolution no one asked for. Through these acts of violence and affairs, they also bring transparency to corruption and punish the wicked, dividing those who see them as a cause of necessary reform and those who see violence as violence. The television network executives fight over sponsorship with integrity versus competition, while the ambitious young producers in the making fight for the controversy and work to develop Amerikan Hell as reality programming.

Geneva is our lead antagonist and runs the group known as "Amerikan Hell", underneath the supervision of The Devil. She is unconventionally attractive, toned, battered, impatient, and stubborn. Read Geneva's full bio!

The Driver is... pretty self-explanatory. He drives the group's van. He is old, brittle, with deeply sunken eyes, and rarely leaves the group's van due to his frail shaking legs. Read The Driver's full bio!

NOTE FROM THE WRITERS: Yes, like many great horror and thriller classics, we also start our's off with an attractive and talented female who escapes from somewhere dangerous and then gets brutally murdered by a bunch of satanic lunatics. You want to see this beautiful church girl get bloodied up and murdered? Then let's get film funded! ;)

Based in Los Angeles, CA, Nicholas is a screenwriter, an artist, and works as an art director with the creative ad agency Little Giant Studios. He has worked as a script reader from development companies to production teams to literary representation while continuing to hone his own craft along the way. His dedication and obsession with detail is what makes Nicholas such a meticulous writer, artist, and designer. He has gone to win over a dozen screenwriting awards, including several shared accolades with Bryce in their years of collaboration.

Eric is a cinematographer born and raised in Kansas City, who currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia. This man eats, breathes, and lives cinematography and photography. His attention to detail, light, and composition is beyond anyone else. This man is truly the next Roger Deakins!

In the fall of 2011, Bryce started the idea of what we now know as Amerikan Hell. In the beginning of 2012, Nicholas and Bryce teamed up and wrote “American Hell” as a feature film screenplay. Without spoiling anything, the scope of Amerikan Hell goes further than this isolated incident to a larger narrative that naturally follows the course of events we have laid out here. First, into a feature length thriller that goes beyond the contained narrative. Following that would make room for a franchise in this messed up Amerikan Hell universe. From doing justice to this short script, we hope to launch Amerikan Hell for an even larger audience looking for adrenaline fueled insanity. This is the type of story that grows larger and more powerful with every installment, just like The Purge or SAW.

Here is the first batch of concept art by Danny Monzillo back in 2012 when Bryce and Nicholas first wrote the feature length screenplay of American Hell. (JUST to show you how far we have come since 2012!)

“Disturbing would be an understatement... The sheer violent randomness in this short is enough to make anyone queezy.” - Indy Red

Not only will you get that warm fuzzy feeling of supporting independent filmmaking and being able to say one day "Hey, I'm apart of that film! Look Ma, I paid for the blood that squirted out of that girl's neck as she screams for help!".... You'll also get some sweet rewards! Here are some badass "Amerikan Hell" rewards that you could be getting! We've been working day and night to create these items just for you! :)

Update: The Concept Art Print has been discounted from the $50 Pledge to the $25 Pledge! And the Tee Shirt has been discounted from the $100 Pledge to the $50 Pledge! Grab yours quick! :)

Risks and challenges

The challenges that accompany any film production are great and Amerikan Hell is no exception. Actors and crew drop out, weather pops up, locations change, and dates are pushed.

The key to overcoming these challenges (and at times benefiting from them) is preparation, experience, and flexibility.

We've spent over half a year organizing and planning this new short film down to the smallest detail possible, but our seasoned team also knows to expect the unexpected. As artists and professionals, we've learned to plan for any and all obstacles that come our way. Heck, we embrace them!

We have been working on this story since 2012 and the fact that we all as a cast and crew have worked together before to shoot a low budget short back in 2014, means we can tackle this once again and come out stronger than ever!

If you have questions, want to read the new short screenplay, or watch the first short film, don't hesitate to drop Robert Bryce Milburn a line at:

Support

Select this reward

Pledge $5 or more
About $5

Updates of Amerikan Hell and listed on our website as a "Bloody Funder"!

We truly appreciate your pledge! Thank you SO very much! :)

Also, if you're local to Atlanta, Georgia, you now get the opportunity to be an extra in the film! Wanna be a church member who burns alive? Or a pissed off towns member in the crowd? Or EVEN an eager reporter fighting through people?

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $10 or more
About $10

Digital download of our poster, Digital download of our award-winning short film “American Hell” (2014), and digital download of the brand new short film “Amerikan Hell” (2017) after completion. + the $5 reward.